They keep telling me I need to get out more...

...I'm beginning to believe they may be on to something.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when we had to be somewhere at two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. On the way we stopped at Bojangles for fried chicken because...it's Sunday. And ain't no WAY The Mama is frying chicken because it's not the chicken-frying that's the problem. It's getting the fried okra, mashed potatoes, biscuits & gravy and chicken all ready at the exact same split second. And while I CAN do it, I don't. (Unless it's your birthday. And it wasn't.) So when we got ready to leave, I got up to refill my tea and The Big Boy said, "Get us a go-box."

No big deal. I'll get the box. Only I couldn't find it. Looked all around the cups and the tea and the napkins and setups and lids and straws and I'm telling you, there were no boxes. When I got back to the table and explained that? They looked at me like I was crazy and TBB said, "You really need to get out more."

At which point The Not Nice Kid got up and went to the counter and asked for a go-box. Imagine that.

I have two beautiful butcher blocks in my kitchen. One about 30 inches long and the other 36. I LOVE my butcher block and no, we've never gotten food poisoning from using them. Get over it. They were getting a little dry looking and one of them has a small split at one end, so off I went to get mineral oil to restore them because I don't know what happened to the other bottle. There's a good chance I used it all and just wasn't paying attention. Or an errant child could have used it to start a fire. THAT'S happened before.

Okay. The catch to this story? I am 53 years old and have been living in rural Alabama for most of my life and...I did not know that mineral oil is used for a laxative. Never heard, read it and I SURE didn't imagine it. SHOULDN'T DRINKING THAT STUFF KILL YOU? Mineral oil? What in the hell is mineral oil made from? Where do they get it? What did they do to...minerals?...to make them give up oil? There can't be anything NATURAL here, can there?

So I just walked into Dumbass Mode. Bigger than hell.

I went to the hardware section and started through the paint thinners and restorers and polishes, and there wasn't any mineral oil. That irritated me because that meant I had to walk all the way across RetailHell to the furniture polish in the grocery section. Wrong. Wasn't there, either. Okay, this store carries fifty million items and this is NOT a strange request so WHERE THE HELL IS THE MINERAL OIL? It's just a butcher block! Why does this have to be so complicated? I started getting a mite testy.

But it was, complicated, so after I nosed around for a little bit I finally found someone who worked there and asked...Where's the mineral oil? And when the nice boy says, "In health and beauty," MY clueless ass said, "What is it doing over there? This stuff was shriveled when I left...after I've walked WalMart for the afternoon it's probably BRITTLE by now."

I really did. Say that. The look on that boy's face SHOULD have told me I was...wandering in strange waters. But I wasn't having a really empathetic day so I didn't notice anything. In hindsight? Don't you know he went home and studied even harder so he could GET OUT OF RETAIL? Where all the nuts are?

Got myself over to health and beauty. Now, keeping in mind that I'M looking for wood products, I had no clue where to start. No idea. I wandered around a little bit...checked out the lotion.

Not there.

Checked out (and you have to admit, at least I was getting warm) the feminine/reproductive products.

Not there.

At this point, keeping in mind HOW CLUELESS I STILL WAS, I marched up to the pharmacy counter and when the nice lady got there, I unloaded.

"I have been hiking through this store for what seems like a significant portion of my life, and all I need is some mineral oil. And I realize that some clueless someone somewhere dictates all this placement stuff but...it's not where it should be. When I left home this morning I had a minor problem that only needed moisturizing but at the rate I'm going by the time I find the mineral oil the only thing I'm going to have left are some hard little chips."

Hard little chips. I said, "hard little chips." I stood there, ranting to a pharmacy assistant, and used the term "hard little chips." Because the only thing I knew you did with mineral oil was moisturize a butcher block.

It was right there. Next to the Preparation H and similar items. On the bottom shelf, costing about a dollar.

I said, "hard little chips." To an intelligent stranger.

It wasn't until TBB picked up the bottle and asked, "What the hell did you buy THIS for?" that someone explained things to me. It's even on the bottle..."lubricant/laxative." I just never noticed it before.

The good thing that comes out of this is that, obviously, I WON'T EVER BE ABLE TO STEP FOOT IN THAT STORE AGAIN. And next time? I'll just get myself to the Rite-Aid and avoid a lot of grief.


But now I'm divided between...do I really need to get out more? Or do you people need to be questioning WHY THE HELL YOU'RE DRINKING MINERAL OIL? Because from where I sit, I think I'll stay home. People who drink mineral oil probably have sterno with spam. And mouthwash with Pop Tarts.

Comments

Comet Girl said…
If it's any consolation, I'm out all the damn time. I NEVER get to spend enough time at home and I would have taken the exact same route as you. EXACTLY! (and my hair is naturally brown underneath the store bought brown)
LivingDeadNurse said…
lol...don't you just love retail...i have had days like that too...and no one seems to know where it was..hope your day gets better